Matilda Rentoft

Matilda started her scientific career in pathology and cancer research, where she explored the possibilities of using stored patient samples to understand the increasing prevalence of tongue tumors in young adults. Matilda soon realized that data mining and all of its aspects interested here and she wanted to know more about the analysis of big data.

After her PhD she did a postdoc in hereditary cancer genetics where she tried to identify the genetic variations causing high incidence of colon cancer in families from the local geographical region. Within this project she quickly got to know the meaning of big data when the sequencing facility one day delivered her 80 TB of data.

Starting this year, working as a research engineer in bioinformatics, Matilda has joined a five year multi-discipline collaborative project which is attempting to elucidate the mechanisms behind plant tolerance to stress. In the long-term this may lead to the discovery of new traits for increased crop efficiency, an invaluable asset in providing food for an increasing world population. The project will generate large datasets from multiple biological levels and Matilda is thrilled to be part of the data integration process and making sense of it all.

Matilda is driven by the hope of someday making a difference, whether it is in disease research or increased crop efficiency, and of course also by the great fun of delving into a new dataset. On her free time you will find her outside, doing anything that includes moving your body, from throwing a frisbee with her kids, to going horseback riding, skiing, climbing or taking a walk in the forest.